How Coast Guard Intelligence mapped hurricane impact.

The rain would not stop coming.

During late August 2017, residents of Houston, Texas, had expected rain from Hurricane Harvey — but not this much rain. Forecasts called for Corpus Christi, 200 miles southwest of Houston on the Texas coast, to bear the brunt of the deluge. Instead, the storm veered inland, inundating Houston and surrounding areas with as much as 40 inches of rain in a four-day span.

The rain came so fast and furiously, in fact, that it flooded low-lying areas and overwhelmed the local dams.

Two dams were intentionally released to the west of downtown Houston as well as one dam to the north, causing flooding on an unprecedented scale across the city. Many people went to bed thinking they'd escaped any storm-related damage and woke up to feet of water on their floors. The force of water released from the dam at Lake Conroe, north of Houston, was so strong that it weakened bridge pilings and washed away homes as it surged downriver.

The people of Houston were not prepared for so much rain.

The water left thousands of Houston residents stranded in their partially-submerged homes, desperate for rescue, and thousands of others unable to leave their homes because the streets around them were flooded. According to FEMA, nearly 80,000 homes had at least 18 inches of floodwater, of which 23,000 were under five feet of water or more. As a result of flooding in and around Houston, more than 42,000 people were displaced and housed in temporary shelters.

U.S. Coast Guard Geospatial Intelligence

Approximately 1,200 miles away in Springfield, VA, a small group of U.S. Coast Guard Geospatial Intelligence (GEOINT) officers was closely monitoring the situation via satellite imagery, Coast Guard reports, and thrice-daily calls with a multi-agency disaster response coalition led by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The 10-person Coast Guard GEOINT unit, eight of whom were available to be interviewed for this story, is part of the U.S. Coast Guard’s Intelligence Coordination Center. They’re a tight-knit team of uniformed “Coasties” and civilian personnel embedded at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), where they perform geospatial analysis in support of Coast Guard missions. Established at NGA in 2014, the unit reflects a history of collaboration with NGA on geospatial cases with a maritime bent. Embedding at NGA allows USCG personnel to take advantage of NGA training and resources to support the USCG’s 11 statutory missions.

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We had imagery of clear paths of the water’s destruction. [The flooding] washed away or sunk a significant number of boats, creating potential maritime pollution and hazards to navigation. It looked like someone took Matchbox toy boats and just threw them. It was pretty moving, what the imagery was showing.

Ensign J., an imagery analyst on the team

All team members requested their full names not be used, in the interest of personnel security.

The 2017 Atlantic Hurricane Season was the Most Active storm season since 2005.

17 NAMED STORMS / 10 HURRICANES / 6 CATEGORY 3 & HIGHER

12 NAMED STORMS / 6 HURRICANES / 3 MAJOR HURRICANES PER SEASON

Compare Long-term average

Hurricane Harvey, which formed in August 2017, was only the first of several big storms to impact the U.S. and its neighbors that year.

The team had supported hurricane relief efforts before—notably, Hurricane Matthew in 2016—but nothing on this scale and never so many intense storms back-to-back.

Beginning with Harvey, the hurricanes hammered the U.S. and its neighbors swiftly one after the other. Relief agencies only had a day or two between each to marshal their resources and prepare for the next one. In a period of just over six weeks, from August to October 2017, the Coast Guard GEOINT team worked long days to support relief efforts for four of the six major hurricanes.

Harvey and the hurricanes that followed tested the team members’ dedication and stretched their ingenuity and resourcefulness, resulting in new, more efficient ways of doing business that ultimately helped [tens of thousands of] residents of hurricane-hit areas. These innovative processes continued to bear fruit for future natural disaster responses.

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It was five, almost six weeks straight of seven-days-a-week support.

Ensign J., an imagery analyst on the team

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We were working to give situational awareness to operators and decision-makers in the field, so that they could figure out what’s going on and make resourcing decisions on the ground. But we were also feeding that same information to other echelons. Our products were getting briefed on a daily basis to the commandant of the Coast Guard and his senior staff to give them better situational awareness. We were also sharing our products with the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] S1 briefing staff, so the DHS Secretary was also aware of what was going on, on the ground.

Commander T., GEOINT department head

MAPPING DISTRESS IN HOUSTON

As the water rose in Houston, residents in need were calling not just 911, but also the Coast Guard and the state Emergency Operations Center.The local networks quickly became so overwhelmed, all Coast Guard calls were routed to the Coast Guard’s National Command Center in Washington, DC, which set up a special triage unit to track calls and coordinate responses.

With so many calls coming in, it was difficult to identify areas and individuals with the greatest need. To address their customer’s information needs, the GEOINT team decided to create a “heat map” showing caller locations and the type of assistance requested so that first responders could better manage their resources on the ground.

The team started by calling the Houston Emergency Operations Center and worked closely with the Coast Guard member embedded within their Operations Center. The Coast Guard liaison officer connected them to the Houston Police Department to get the 911 call logs. Because the Coast Guard GEOINT unit is part of the Intelligence Community, it is restricted in collecting or accessing personal identifiable information (PII) on U.S. persons, such as name, age, gender, or social security number—which meant that the call logs had to be stripped of such information before the GEOINT unit could receive them.

Approximately 40 hours later, the GEOINT team received a sanitized Excel spreadsheet with 911 caller locations and the nature of their distress. The team combined the 911 call data with the Coast Guard call logs—again, ensuring all PII had been removed—for a more complete picture of the situation.

“We were able to parse [the information] out so that we had the crime calls in one bucket and we had the distress calls in another bucket and then we were able to plot both sets of data geospatially and create heat maps to help drive some of the operational decisions on the ground,” explained Commander T. “It was pretty forward-leaning because I don’t think anyone in the IC had that data. [It was] the missing piece.”

The data and resulting heat maps were sent to the Coast Guard to help with search and rescue efforts, however word soon got out and other federal agencies started requesting it. With permission from the police department in Houston, the GEOINT team was able to share the sanitized information and the accompanying heat maps—a move that focused and facilitated relief work.

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It was really disheartening to read some of the stuff that people were calling in about and saying,” noted Intelligence Specialist First Class (IS1) W., a geospatial analyst on the team. “A lot of sad things. ‘We’re in a house. We’re trapped. The water level’s rising and I have my 85-year-old grandfather here and we can’t move him. What do we do?

A Personal Connection

For imagery analyst Ensign J., Houston wasn't just a series of map coordinates, it was her hometown community. Ensign J. is from Houston and her family still lives there. Tracking the havoc Harvey wrecked on Houston was more than just a long day at the office.

A Personal Connection

Before her military service, Ensign J. was a realtor in Houston, so she knew the city well. She was able to put that knowledge to use by helping the National Command Center plot locations of incoming emergency calls. She was also able to help her team understand what the area should look like, as they examined overhead imagery of Harvey's aftermath.

Throughout the storm, Ensign J. remained in close contact with her family. Her parents, who live in a northern Houston suburb, were not flooded but the areas around them were, leaving them house-bound.

"The rain just didn't stop," said Ensign J.'s father, Dan. "It just kept raining and raining and raining. Everything was underwater. There's a massive amount that came in and that's really where all of the destruction comes from. It all came from the water rising and going into people's houses that don't normally flood. We expected rain but no one expected the force of a hurricane."

Nor did they expect the catastrophic flooding from the dams' release. Her mother, Judi, observed, "There was no preparedness for that."

The family was housebound for about a week following the storm. Once they were able to get out of the neighborhood and go to the local grocery store, Judi remembered, "there was nothing in the store. And then we were going far and wide to just do a weekly grocery shopping trip. Just to get basics. And basics weren't coming for a while."

Ensign J.'s childhood home was severely damaged and many of her childhood friends' homes were destroyed. Her high school sustained so much damage it has to be completely rebuilt before students can return. She feels the destruction keenly, not just for herself and her family, but for her community. "Every school that was damaged, every business, that was someone's livelihood. That was someone's memories."

Ensign J.'s parents saw signs of rescue efforts all around their neighborhood, both official-the Coast Guard used Ensign J.'s middle school as a helicopter landing zone-and unofficial, with the Cajun Navy-an informal group of private boat owners who volunteer in search and rescue efforts-coming with their boats from Louisiana to pitch in.

Judi recalled, "We had people from all over the country providing resources to Houston. It's testifying to human nature that, in the end, people helped people. It brought out the good in people. People just came together."

The city of Houston is now rebuilding and recovery is happening gradually, thanks to the spirit of community and resilience.

"There were a lot of people really motivated to get moving and working on [rebuilding]," Dan noted. "That's really the spirit that they're working on. Everybody's trying to clean it up, get it going, get it back. It may be even better if they can."

Ensign J. agreed. "Seeing that spirit, it makes me proud to come from there and to have been able to help in a capacity."

Ensign J. agreed. "Seeing that spirit, it makes me proud to come from there and to have been able to help in a capacity."

Coast Guard Search & Rescue

The Coast Guard responds to search and rescue requests in response to Hurricane Harvey in the greater Houston Metro Area Aug. 27,2017. The Coast Guard is working closely with all federal, state local operation centers and has command posts to manage search and rescue operations.

Faces of Hurricane Harvey

A Coast Guard aircrew assists infant during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in the greater Houston Metro Area Aug. 29, 2017. The Coast Guard has pulled assets and resources from across the country to create a sustainable response force.

Urban Rescues in greater Houston area

A U.S. Coast Guard rescue swimmer walks toward an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter at Air Station Houston Aug. 27, 2017. The Coast Guard Texas Guard federal conducting Guard, Air National Guard, Customs and Border Protection and other federal, state and local agencies have been urban rescues in the greater Houston area since Saturday.

Coast Guard Search & Rescue

Coast Guard Air Station Houston responds to search and rescue requests after Hurricane Harvey in Houston, Texas, Aug. 27, 2017. The Coast Guard is working closely with all local and state emergency operation centers and has established incident command posts to manage Coast Guard storm operations.

Coast Guard Search & Rescue

The Coast Guard responds to search and rescue requests in response to Hurricane Harvey in the Beaumont, Texas, area Aug. 30, 2017. The Coast Guard is working closely with all federal, state and operations centers and has posts to manage search and rescue operations.

In the span of a week, Irma grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane, with maximum winds of 185 miles per hour propelling it across Cuba to Florida. On 10 September 2017, it unleashed 130-mile-per-hour winds on the Florida Keys as it moved northward.

This time, based on lessons learned from the earlier storm, the GEOINT team had quickly developed a new tool for its toolkit: a dynamic online geospatial “event portal” that pulled in data from multiple sources—including NOAA—to show what was happening in the hurricane zone in real time. The portal combined maps with data layers that users could toggle on and off to see what was most important to them. Any Coast Guard user with a Common Access Card could access the portal at any time, from any Coast Guard workstation.

read more about the Coast Guard Geospatial Event Portal

The portal, which was created as Harvey support was winding down and used more robustly during Irma and successive hurricanes, freed up the GEOINT team to work on damage assessments and other analysis rather than constantly pulling new data sets and rebuilding the same product with slightly updated information every few hours. It was also a boon to customers—many of whom were Coast Guard members who had themselves been evacuated and were operating at low bandwidth in or around the disaster areas—as their inboxes were no longer crammed with large email attachments and they could get real-time updates on-demand by accessing the portal website.

The Coast Guard event portal was the brainchild of Mr. F., a civilian senior geospatial analyst on the team. NGA had used its own portal in the past to disseminate information, so it was a familiar way for customers to receive information.

With the event portal, the Coast Guard had once again found a way to overcome their limited resources—by leveraging technology of their NGA hosts—to magnify its impact. The portal became a mainstay of Coast Guard GEOINT support as the storm season raged on, and a permanent part of the GEOINT team’s toolkit for future natural disaster support.

As Hurricane Irma powered down—leaving flooding and damage across Florida—Hurricane Jose came on the scene, impacting the Caribbean and eking out some final damage on the coast of New England. Hot on Jose’s tails was Hurricane Maria, which first hit the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica as a Category 5 hurricane before making landfall in Puerto Rico on 20 September as a high-end Category 4 hurricane, with winds of 155 miles per hour. (See a map of all the 2017 hurricanes’ paths.) The destruction was massive.

At NGA in Virginia, for the Coast Guard GEOINT department, all hands were on deck to provide support. The event portal was humming along, allowing the team to focus on a list of 86 targets given to them by the Coast Guard—including ports, buoys, dams and reservoirs, and sunken sailboats that could be leaking oil. Their assessments of each target’s post-storm status would “give the on-scene commander awareness of the level of damage, to help decision-making,” according to Commander T.

By the time Maria hit, the team had perfected its hurricane playbook. They knew their roles, they had honed their processes, and they could anticipate their customers’ needs. Ensign J. commented, “We really quickly got into a great workflow, roles, communication.”

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We did learn as the hurricanes [progressed],” recalled Mr. T., senior imagery analyst. “As the third hurricane showed up, we had learned what we needed to do, what we should focus on, and what was not as important. As the hurricanes kept coming in, we were able to refine our work. From a support standpoint, from the streamlining, from data availability—everything got better as the hurricanes went on.

Mr. T., a Senior Imagery Analyst

I get to see the stuff first-hand and then see the outcome of my products. That's direct impact of the mission. It's rewarding.

IS2 H.

Imagery Analyst

...You don't look back on it and say, 'Oh my gosh, how did we get through that?' We're, 'Let's go again.'

Chief R.

Collection Manager

It was definitely hectic. Definitely a lot of long hours. But I think there was a lot of good that came out of it. I think that people saw what the Coast Guard can do…

IS1 W.

Geospatial Analyst

Being able to help the decision-makers, giving them an overview of what's going on, what's important to them—we were able to provide that for them.

IS2 S.

Imagery Analyst

Every day I go to bed feeling like I've done my best for the nation.

Commander T.

USCG GEOINT Team Supervisor

As the hurricanes kept coming in, we were able to, refine our work.

Mr. T.

Imagery Analyst

I find it fascinating that you can take an entire Excel spreadsheet with thousands of columns, where you wouldn't be able to see any kind of patterns, and put that on a map, and then all the patterns and the different aspects come out visually for you.

Mr. F.

Senior Geospatial Analyst

Wherever the storm hits, there's probably someone that has family there, that's affected. We pride ourselves on giving that dedication to everyone, because that's everyone's mother, sister, brother, father.

The levels of resourcefulness and initiative shown during Hurricane Harvey are typical of this small team, which is accustomed to finding creative ways to partner with larger IC elements to achieve its mission—a dynamic the Coast Guard jokingly refers to as “collateral duty.”

Figuring out how to do more with limited resources is one of the things that Commander T. most admires about his team. “Every day they impress me,” he said, noting that they’re always thinking about more efficient ways of doing business and helping their customers. “We push the envelope all the time, we try new things. We see the capabilities and technologies that exist out there and say, ‘How can we utilize that capability against our problem set,’ which isn’t a normal problem set that the rest of the IC focuses on. Our team is constantly looking at capabilities and new, developing technologies and saying, ‘Hey, I bet if we did this but tweak it a little, we could actually assist Coast Guard operations.’ It’s very rewarding work.”

read more about Coast Guard Intelligence

The U.S. Coast Guard officially joined the Intelligence Community in December 2001, although it had been contributing to intelligence products since the creation of its predecessor organization in the early 1900s. It has a unique role in the IC, with dual law enforcement and intelligence responsibilities in support of its 11 statutory missions. The Coast Guard’s Intelligence Coordination Center is headquartered outside of Washington, DC, but intelligence personnel are stationed in Coast Guard offices around the country as well as at two intelligence fusion centers, one on each coast. The Coast Guard even has cryptological units embedded at the National Security Agency (NSA).

In broad strokes, Coast Guard intelligence personnel provide information on a regular basis to policy-makers, Coast Guard leadership, ship operators, and other IC elements. Ongoing missions include stopping illegal fishing in the South Pacific, monitoring maritime oil pollution, assessing ice levels in Arctic shipping lanes, and maritime interdiction of -illegal drug—the latter in conjunction with IC partners, including their NGA colleagues down the hall. It’s much more multifaceted than the search and rescue operations and aids to navigation for which the Coast Guard is primarily known.

“It’s very dynamic, it’s very interesting work, both the national-level intel support, as well as the homeland security and law enforcement intelligence support we provide,” said Commander T., who’s been with the Coast Guard for “17 years without one regret”—nine of which has been in intelligence.

The Coast Guard GEOINT team is comprised of imagery analysts, geospatial analysts, and a collection manager. Imagery analysts examine satellite images looking for specific items or clues as to what’s happened or changed in an area, based on what the satellite captures. In the case of the hurricanes, they were often looking for signs of damage to critical infrastructure such as power plants and hospitals, blocked navigable waterways, as well as Coast Guard property.

Geospatial analysts, by contrast, create maps and charts with data layers overlaid on top—essentially visualizing the data received from various sources, including overhead imagery. This often reveals patterns and relationships that weren’t apparent in the raw data. The Houston emergency 911 call heat map is an example of a geospatial analytical product.

The team’s collection manager, Chief R., is charged with gathering requirements and tasking both government and commercial sensors to get imagery. During the 2017 hurricane season, she worked with FEMA and other agencies to get the imagery her team needed, since all the agencies involved had similar imagery requirements. She explained that after Hurricane Harvey, “We just piggy-backed off of [their requirements] and everybody kind of came together. When assisting a natural disaster, I ensure our areas are going to be covered.”

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I get to see the stuff first-hand and then see the outcome of my products. I see it down there, they seize it up here. That’s direct impact of the mission. It’s rewarding. Makes you want to come to work and catch bad guys.

IS2 H. is an imagery analyst with a law enforcement background whose GEOINT work supports U.S. counter-narcotics efforts.

It’s really rewarding to be able to know that you could have possibly saved someone’s life, you’ve done something meaningful. And that’s what keeps you coming in and working the long hours when you need to. It’s dedication to the mission.

The 2017 hurricane season was an intense period of long days for this small team, and they rose to the challenge. Intelligence Specialist Second Class (IS2) S., an imagery analyst, said he and the rest of the team took the demanding schedule in stride. “I don’t think anybody in our shop really minded the long hours. We’re all pretty much willing to put in the time because everything is pretty time-relevant. You want to get as much information out as fast as possible so people can make decisions.”

IS2 S.’s sentiment was echoed universally by his teammates. Chief R. observed of her GEOINT colleagues, “I can’t speak highly enough of the people that work in this shop. They never said no, they never balked. They were always ready to step up and come in wherever, whenever.”

Ensign J. added, “The team never asked up the chain, ‘What’s in it for me?’ Because that’s part of being in the uniform. It’s selfless. We really just kind of buckled down and got the job done.”

During Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, the Coast Guard rescued more than 11,000 people and 1,500 pets; and removed 3,600 damaged or sunken boats from the water. It is likely that the team’s products did have an impact on those numbers, although it’s impossible to calculate a one-to-one correlation.

The efficiencies gained during the hurricane season have been put to good use in the months since. Notably, the event portal was used for Coast Guard personnel accountability during the California wildfires of December 2017 and again during deadly mudslides in California in early 2018. Both events required it to be updated to pull in specific, relevant data feeds, different from those accessed during the hurricanes. The portal is such an effective tool, in fact, that as soon as the mudslides hit, Coast Guard operators in the field contacted the GEOINT team asking, “Where’s our portal?”

This was not the first use of GEOINT by Coast Guard intelligence personnel to support disaster response. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the Gulf Coast causing extensive catastrophic damage. During the recovery, Coast Guard intelligence levied national and commercial imagery to better inform decision makers as to the extent of the damage and how to best respond. Again, in 2010 when the DEEPWATER HORIZON oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico exploded causing a Spill of National significance that released millions of barrels of oil into the sea, Coast Guard Intelligence personnel used imagery to better inform the cleanup efforts.

Another positive outcome is the increased visibility the GEOINT team has gained as a result of their efforts. The team and its capabilities weren’t well known before the 2017 hurricane season but since then, their intelligence products have become must-reads for Coast Guard customers as high as the Commandant himself, particularly when natural disasters strike.

“Prior to all these hurricanes, I think only a small fraction of the operational Coast Guard knew who we were or what we did here, what we can provide them,” pointed out Chief R. “When you think intel, you think more of a national security mindset, versus support to natural disasters—fires, hurricanes, earthquakes. We as a department touched a large portion of the Coast Guard through all these natural disasters. We established and played a critical support role here, and now the field-level Coast Guard knows that they have reach-back support for imagery analysis or geospatial analysis when it comes to floods, fires, mudslides, etc.”

The team’s work during those weeks demonstrated their resourcefulness, dedication, and successful teamwork with government partners. More than anything, it demonstrated the degree to which they embody the Coast Guard’s motto, Semper Paratus—Always Ready.